The Pedro/Koufax comparisons rankle me, as you may know. Koufax was great, but Pedro stands well above him. That is a simple fact. So I tracked down the email address for the booth and dashed off a note to Joe, citing some stuff from twoold JoS posts.

And less than two innings later, Ish posted: "OH SNAP. This might be Allan's e-mail. ... IT IS! Named on the air!" and Laura followed: "they're reading Allan's email now! AND THEY PLUGGED HIS BOOK!!!!"

From the MLB archive of the radio broadcast (Pedro chat only):

Joe Castiglione [in the fifth]: Pedro pitches tonight, for the Phillies against the Mets. Trying to go 5-0.

Dave O'Brien: I was watching a replay late last night of a young Pedro Martinez, in his prime, pitching against the old Tampa Bay Devil Rays [August 29, 2000]. It was just remarkable.

Castiglione: He dominated them like he did most teams. ...

O'Brien: And he nailed the first batter of the ball game. It was a game down there at Tropicana. He got him on the hand.

Castiglione: Was that Gerald Williams?

O'Brien: It was. It was Gerald Williams -- and he charged the mound. And he got thrown out, Pedro stayed in, and just mowed them down (laughs).

Castiglione: He had a no-hitter until John Flaherty broke it up in the ninth inning.

O'Brien: That's right. It was incredible to watch. ... But to watch Pedro, pitching better at that point in his life than he would ever pitch again, or ever had before that, start that pitch off the outside corner and run it back over and over again, and break bats and strike out guys seemingly at will ...

Castiglione: His command was remarkable.

O'Brien: That was a Hall of Famer. I was watching a Hall of Famer.

Castiglione: ... He's certainly the Sandy Koufax of his era over that period.

O'Brien: Yep.

Castiglione: Of seven years or so. Sure-fire first round Hall of Famer.

And as B.J. Upton batted in the top of the eighth, Castiglione said:

We made a remark earlier about Pedro being the Sandy Koufax of his era. Got an interesting email from a fan -- in fact, the author of Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox, Allan Wood, who makes some great points. [Upton flies to Ellsbury, Burrell bats for Perez]

The blogger, Allan Wood, points out that "while the raw numbers of Pedro and Koufax look similar, Koufax pitched with a higher mound in a pitcher's park in LA and at a time when the rule book strike zone was enforced" -- shoulders to the knees -- and "Pedro's home park favoured hitters, he had a smaller strike zone and pitched in an offensive era", the ultimate steroid era.

So, really, he points out that Pedro "leaves Koufax in the dust" and makes some great points. I would agree. Pedro's performance around '99, 2000, the most remarkable pitching in many, many years.

Very cool. I was watching NESN at the time, so I missed it live. Fellow Canadian Tim was kind enough to extract and send me an mp3 file.

As I've said before, Pedro's 2000 season is the greatest year of pitching since the mound was moved back to its current distance of 60 feet, 6 inches.

And he threw eight shutout innings (8-6-0-2-7, 130) against the Mets tonight! It was his highest pitch count since he threw 136 on May 1, 2001 against the Mariners.

Very cool; for once I was watching NESN rather than listening and missed it! It's funny: reading the transcript I could hear Joe C's voice; listening to the mp3 was like replaying something I'd already heard rather than read.

Wouldn't Pedro have looked good in a Red Sox uniform this year? I mean, I totally understand why they didn't sign him, and maybe if they had he wouldn't look nearly as good as he looks now, but still, it would have been something pretty neat.

I wonder, would anyone here consider trying to resign him this off season? If they were willing to give $5m to Smoltz and Penny, why not Pedro?

Tell you one thing for sure. Pedro would NEVER have thrown 130 pitches in a Red Sox uniform.

Probably the biggest reason why Charlie Manuel allowed him to go back out in the 8th is their bullpen. The Phillies bullpen has been TERRIBLE lately, and in a 1-0 game, there was no real right answer. Still, I couldn't help but think of Gump when Pedro went back out.

I pay no attention to that stuff. And all I did was play the audio and used garageband (an apple program) to record it as if i was recording a voice. So basically it played out of the speakers and into the computer's microphone. High tech shit!

Benjamin has a good point---the music stuff is likely more problematic.

Remember that just because something is non-commercial does not mean it is fair use; if that were the case, all those cases brought against regular users who are downloading music would have been losers. And there are no clear guidelines as to how much is too much to claim fair use.

Of course, I was thinking of this more as a law professor's hypothetical, not a real case. Allan could theoretically claim they infringed HIS copyright in his email by reading it on the air (a pretty weak claim, given that he sent it to them for that purpose), and they could claim he infringed theirs by putting the transcript on the blog. The mp3 raises all kinds of other issues: Tim copied, then Allan copied and distributed that copy by the link on the blog.

But in the real world, no one will sue anyone, and we law professors can just keep staring at our navels uselessly and torture our students with exam questions. Hmmm, hope none of my students is lurking and getting a tip on this fall's exam!